A Nigerian woman and her Irish-born daughter have had their deportation orders quashed after a judge rejected the State’s arguments that “non-settled migrants” do not have private life rights.

Mr Justice Colm MacEochaidh quashed the deportation orders over the State’s “irrational and unlawful” failure to consider their rights under Article 8 of the European Convention of Human Rights to respect for private and family life before ordering their deportation.

He said another ground of challenge to the orders, based on the State’s obligations under the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child to consider the best interests of children when making decisions affecting them, must fail because the relevant terms of the Irish Immigration Act and the Convention “contradict” each other.

Because of that conflict, he could not find this child had a legitimate expectation the terms of the convention would be respected by the Minister for Justice in deciding whether she should be deported, he said.

The woman arrived in Ireland when pregnant in late 2008 and her daughter was born in February 2009.